March 19, 2014

Bill Gates to attend dedication of Bill & Melinda Gates Hall

William H. “Bill” Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will be on campus for the Oct. 1 dedication of Bill & Melinda Gates Hall.

The visit was announced today by Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Charles Phlegar. No additional details on the visit are available at this time.

Nearly complete and already functioning as the home of Computing and Information Science at Cornell, Gates Hall was fully funded with no additional debt before the first shovel hit the ground, thanks in part to a $25 million donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Groundbreaking for the new building, located at the corner of Hoy and Campus roads, was in early April 2012.

Designed by world-renowned architecture firm Morphosis and its design director, Pritzker Prize-winner Thom Mayne, the new 100,000-square foot Gates Hall provides a base for more than 60 core CIS faculty members, as well as almost 500 declared undergraduate majors and 350 graduate students. The building, which is on track to be LEED Gold certified, features open workspaces and abundant natural light, intended to inspire collaboration and creativity.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave the university $25 million in January 2006 to support the construction of a signature building for Computing and Information Science. Founded in 1997, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the world. It works to help the world’s poorest people lift themselves out of hunger and poverty, to harness advances in science and technology, to save lives in developing countries, to improve U.S. high school and postsecondary education, and to build strategic relationships and promote policies that will help advance its work.